Belly of the Beast
by Lady Razorsharp
Summary: Get inside Roger's head during the fight with Dorothy-1. Set at the end of "Dorothy, Dorothy."


DISCLAIMER: Big O and all related characters are property of Bandai/Sunrise.  This story, however, is property of me.

Belly of the Beast

By The Lady Razorsharp

Lyrics: "Beauty and the Beast" by Stevie Nicks

_You're not a stranger to me   
And you are something to see   
You don't even know how to please   
You say a lot...but you're unaware how to leave _

Even from inside the belly of the beast, the noise is deafening.  Everywhere I look is destruction and chaos; somewhere down there, Dastun is trying to bring some semblance of order to the frightened crowds.

I sling the handgrips with all my might.  _Left. Right. Left. Right._

_…the hammer of retribution…_

Dorothy-1 is, impossibly, still standing, still moving, still putting up a fight with a ten-foot crater gaping where her midsection used to be.  She wraps those steel tentacles around Big O and holds him fast, almost as if she would embrace him.  Something akin to repulsion shudders through the big machine and into me, through the bond of pilot to machine.  I tighten my grip on the controls, digging in my heels on the pedals, and I feel Big O respond, planting his huge feet even more firmly against the splintered asphalt of the street.  As we struggle, the three of us, the stress becomes too much for Dorothy-1's damaged frame.  The eerie slanted eyes stare down, glowing for just a moment before the faceplate warps and shatters.  The tentacles loosen their hold on Big O, and I yank back the handgrips, ready to slam the huge iron fist into---

"_Dorothy!!_"

I hear myself scream her name.  Every muscle I had gathered to pull Big O's colossal arms around now has to go into reverse, the motion almost ripping my arms from their sockets as the laws of physics bend nearly to breaking.  _A body in motion tends to stay in motion, Roger Smith, _says a familiar monotone in my head.

My darling lives in a world that is not mine   
An old child misunderstood...out of time   
Timeless is the creature who is wise   
And timeless is the prisoner in disguise 

I watch the iron fists reach for her, _God, let it be enough!_  Somehow, they've slowed just in time to avoid hitting her.  I lower the megadeus' huge arms and Big O complies, standing as a pillar of calm in this sea of confusion.

"Dorothy!"

I pop the canopy, the close proximity of the megadeus shielding me from view of those on the street below.  Firing the wire from my watch, I hear the piton catch into Dorothy-1's plating with a satisfying snick.  I test the piton to see if it holds, then swing out onto the shoulders of the broken megadeus.  I scramble up the dented frame towards R. Dorothy, this little android who's thrown my well-ordered life into absolute chaos.  Cradled with her arms crossed and her head bowed, she looks as if she were an angel, praying for the salvation of Paradigm, suspended between heaven and earth. 

How small she looks, tucked away in her big sister's womb.

_Is that what we look like, before we're born?_

I am determined she should be born again.

_Oh who is the beauty...who the beast   
Would you die of grieving when I leave   
Two children too blind to see   
I would fall in your shadow...I believe _

She is as pale as chalk; not her usual snow-white complexion, but somehow washed-out, grayish.   Explosions and shouts punctuate the air around us, yet she does not stir. Beck's golden crown weighs heavy on her bowed russet head, her fathomless dark eyes half-closed.  Will she be stillborn?

I rip the wires from her, severing her ties to Dorothy-1, to Soldano, to Wayneright with my own two hands.

"Come on, Dorothy! Snap out of it!"

_Rip. Snap. Tear._  I rend to pieces that which has hurt her, wanting to take her far away from pain and fear, though I know she's not supposed to feel such emotions.

"You're Dorothy Wayneright," I tell her, pulling her slack form into my arms.  "Just be who you are!"

Slowly, the android raises her head, her movements jerky.  Her black eyes are shadowed with static; if she were human, I would say she was trying to bring me into focus.  "Ro-ger," she intones, her voice digitized and fractured.  Those pools of darkness stare blankly up at me, searching my face.  I could drown in those eyes, every inch of my skin raised in gooseflesh as I dive into her, slipping beneath the glassy surface of an icy pond.

My love is a man who's not been tamed   
Oh...my love lives in a world of false pleasure and pain   
We come from difference worlds...we are the same (my love)   
I never doubted your beauty...I've changed   
I never doubted your beauty...I've changed 

I stagger under her weight, not realizing how heavy she is until this moment.  My adrenaline must be draining away, now that I know she's not permanently damaged.  "Ugh!  You must weigh a ton," I mutter.  _How funny, this is one woman who won't slug me for that comment. Of course, if she did, she'd knock me out._

I bear her back to Big O, letting her sink slowly to her knees by the console, but not before removing the insidious golden diadem Beck had bestowed upon her, like some unholy princess.  Stories my mother told me come swirling back like gauzy mist: Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty, waiting for true-love's kiss to wake her.  

Changed...who is the beauty   
Where is my beast (my love)   
There is no beauty   
Without my beast (my love)

~*******~

AN: This is a short little piece that I could probably finish, but it's a moment that I've had in my head since I saw the series again on DVD.  Take it as you will.


End file.
